


Black Ice

by Milligan (Blackheathen)



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24905872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackheathen/pseuds/Milligan
Summary: You should watch your step.
Kudos: 6





	Black Ice

Black Ice

I am watching as she goes down. A momentary awkwardness in the life of one who has always had the grace of a faery queen, her slender arms flail in the air, once, twice and again, spinning round in widening circles as her hands reach out for something more stable than icy air. Her hands are safely enclosed in heavy gloves against the winter night, but I can almost see her fingers reaching through the wool, blindly struggling against a force far greater than any human, or even myself. Gravity always wins.

Her feet have badly lost their way tonight. In a blink she is airborne, suspended like a marionette parallel to the footpath. From my birds eye perspective above her, I can’t tell how high her body climbs into the air before it begins to fall, but I know one thing precisely. This, as they say, is going to hurt.

Crack!

Such is the momentum of her fall, her head smacks the pavement first. It’s a resounding boom of sound against my fragile ears, enough to make my body sway for a second, my feet reflexively gripping the tree branch. I wonder how the whole world could not have heard that sound. But this is the reality of the humankind. Their wits and their senses are so dulled in these modern times that I am sure no one in the surrounding houses will have noticed. Their capacity to hear is almost as poor as one mortal womans capacity to notice the menacing lustre of black ice covering the path ahead. Even the squirrels avoided it. Surely she could have followed their little tracks around the danger instead of ploughing ahead with the ruthless and tactless arrogance of, as I have noted before, a faery queen.

Maybe I’m not being fair.

Almost as soon as I think this, I hear it echoed quite clearly from the figure sprawled on the ground. It’s something of a curse she whispers to the black sky, but I watch as her face changes when she tastes the blood in her mouth. I’m faintly surprised that blood is even there, considering the giant river of it that runs away from the back of her head. The blood makes the snow steam gently, a little red mist rising in wisps against her face. She lets her breath out in a long sigh. I’ve heard that sound before. It is the midwinter of life, and the long dark night of the soul approaches. I should be there, I think.

I drift ungracefully to the earth as only a half frozen, sodden mess of feathers can do. As my body unravels, I feel for a moment the keen sting of the northern winter on my bare flesh, both chilling and delightful. I select garments from my memory that might serve well enough and soon I am standing at her shoulder. There is enough light from the distant  street lamp and the moons sliver above for her to see me if she wishes. After a minute I stoop down, one knee in the snow so that I am that much closer, because I have  realised that she can’t  actually see me properly. Her dark green eyes are open but darting, unfocused and full of pain. Trying to speak but the words are silent and formless. There is a red halo around her head, an ugly frame for her beauty that  mesmerises me; just the contrast between the glossy richness of human blood against the pure white snow crystals could have me entranced for hours on any other night.

Sarah has only minutes, at best. Her skull is broken and her self is pouring out of it.

I say her name close to her ear, and for the briefest of moments she sees me! She hasn’t laid eyes on me in this form for ten years, yet she recognizes me, I am sure.

The thrill of human eyes upon me. I shall never tire of it, I confess. In ages past it was commonplace for me to be seen when I ventured out from my underground kingdom. Nowadays, one has to be a little touched in the head or floating on artificial substances to see me pass by. Or you could be Sarah. Strange, defiant, world crushing Sarah. She would be annoyed as hell right now to be denied clarity of sight and sharpness of tongue. That’s how it is always was with us. Maybe that’s why I have shadowed her steps all these years. I am not stupid enough to deny the power of my own vanity. But she smiles at me one last time and I am reduced to nothing.

Her heart is shuddering to a stop as I kiss her soft mouth. The pupils of her eyes grow wide and dark until I can see tiny stars reflected in them. Little snowflakes settle on her cheeks and eyelashes but the coolness of her body does not melt them.

I am not death, nor deaths master.

That title belongs to another. Winter has always been deaths domain. As sharp as the cold he is ever ready and no one is safe; not the beggar in the gutter or the young woman  whose eyes habitually drift upwards, behind her, smiling into the treetops instead of watching where she was going.

I have to step back as she starts to fade into deaths embrace. She is herself again. She looks happy, more beautiful than ever. As she passes away I find myself flying on owls wings again, beating heavily against the light. It is like flying through honey, ever upwards and ultimately futile. I am the master of pathways, I can spin and weave and turn you about as much as I wish, but I cannot follow this straightest of roads. Is she holding out her hand to me? I can’t tell, nor can my form touch this light to place my own hand on hers.

In a blink of light far grander than anything I could conjure, she is gone. I should go back. I should return to the mortal winter even as they are rolling her body up in a plastic sheet and taking it away. This heaviness against my wings is foreign. Somewhere, far away, Labyrinth is waking, calling my name. I keep flying.


End file.
